For new coach Bailiff, trust is earned, not assumed
You’ve probably heard the phrase, “communication is the key to a healthy relationship.” But for Rice’s football team, communication takes a back seat to another vital component — trust.
By now, everyone is familiar with the soap opera named Todd Graham. Coming off a disastrous 1-11 season in 2005, we held low expectations for this newcomer. But Graham’s zeal and a startling 31-30 loss to cross-town rival University of Houston turned heads. The season flew by and before we knew it, we were in a bowl game for the first time in 47 years. Soon christened the 2006 C-USA Coach of the Year, Graham had campus in the palm of his hand.
But like good weather in Houston, Graham departed as quickly as he arrived. Wooed by his former employer, the University of Tulsa, with a $400,000 pay raise, Graham reneged on his promise to stay inside our hedges.
The athletics department, left without a head football coach for the second time in as many years, began a frenzied search for a replacement. Names came and went, but in the end, one remained — David Bailiff. Like his predecessor, Bailiff was by no means a household name, and had very little D-I head coaching experience.
But this lack of outside attention is one of the factors that has crafted Bailiff’s warm, welcoming persona. The first time I met him, I was taken aback by how much of a good-ol’ boy his burly stature and Texas twang convey. Bailiff, emanating an ardor that Graham never had, let it be known that he came to this school not in the hopes of merely matching last year’s success, but also to foster a tighter Rice community — a community that would tailgate without being all but cattle-prodded into the stadium.
An example from Orientation Week comes to mind: Bailiff made his team help new students move into their residential colleges, thus giving the new students an immediate positive impression of the team.
In addition, Bailiff wanted his players to remember that they are called student-athletes for a reason. His focus on the education of his athletes is one aspect that Graham, in his unwavering desire for success on the gridiron, ignored.
“It makes for a much tighter community, bigger brand of people, since it’s not just the football team,” freshman kicker Brandon Yelovich, a walk-on and former Graham recruit, said. “[Bailiff] is definitely making sure that we go out and help out around the school, make sure that we’re actually out there, that we’re not just secluded in our own little football society.”
The new coach is making sure that those who never played under Graham will be far more integrated into the Rice community than previous classes, strengthening the student body and, subsequently, the fan-base.
Trust, once lost, is never easy to recoup. It takes time, energy and dedication. But for all intents and purposes, Bailiff is off on the right foot — he has attended a student-run production of Much Ado About Nothing and put residential college decals of the athletes’ respective college on their helmets. Bailiff even does the small stuff, like personally bringing a media guide to the Thresher office — which adds me to his growing list of fans. The trust lost in the Graham debacle is returning.
“Trust is doing what you say you’re going to do,” Bailiff said. “Trust has to be the number one word in any successful organization. I don’t care if it’s athletics, I don’t care if it’s business, those players have to trust us as coaches and we have to trust them as players.”
When the season starts tomorrow, the student section will undoubtedly be its raucous self. Bodies will be painted, signs will be held high, and pieces of paper with detrimental — although wholly justifiable — chants will be passed around. But will it be as turbulent as it would have been without the efforts Bailiff has put in to regain our fervor? Probably not. We were hurt before, but after seeing everything the new coaching staff has done, we are waiting with open arms.
— Casey Michel is a Brown College sophomore and sports editor.
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